The other guard dragged me out with my toes tracing the way, and threw me in a truck, which immediately took off. The beating party would last for the next three to four hours, before they turned me over to another team that would use different torture techniques.
“Stop praying, motherfucker. You’re killing people,” [ ? ? ? ? ?] said, and punched me hard on my mouth. My mouth and nose started to bleed, and my lips grew so big that I technically could not speak anymore. The colleague of [ ? ? ? ? ?] turned out to be one of my guards; [ ? ? ? ? ?] and [ ? ? ? ? ?] each took one of my sides and started to punch me and smash me against the metal of the truck. One of the guys hit me so that my breath stopped and I was choking. I felt like I was breathing through my ribs.
Did I pass out? Maybe not. All I know is that I kept noticing [ ? ? ? ? ?] several times spraying ammonia in my nose. The funny thing was, Mr. [ ? ? ? ? ?] was at the same time a “lifesaver,” as were the guards I would be dealing with for the year to come; all of them were allowed to give me medication and first aid.
After 10 to 15 minutes, the truck stopped at the beach. My escort team dragged me out of the truck and put me in a high-speed boat. [ ? ? ? ? ?] never gave me a break; they kept hitting me.
“You’re killing people,” said [ ? ? ? ? ?]. I believe he was thinking out loud: He knew he was committing the most cowardly crime in the world, torturing a helpless detainee who was completely submissive and turned himself in. [ ? ? ? ? ?] was trying to convince himself that he was doing the right thing.
Inside the boat, [ ? ? ? ? ?] made me drink salt water, I believe it was direct from the ocean. It was so nasty I threw it up. They put an object in my mouth and shouted, “Swallow, motherfucker!” I decided inside not to swallow the organ-damaging salt water, which choked me as they kept pouring the water in my mouth. “Swallow, you idiot!” I contemplated quickly, and decided for the nasty, damaging water rather than death.
More (much more) here, if you can stomach it.
And the man ultimately responsible for this stain on our collective conscience was verbally fellated by every living U.S. President last week. But remember, we're supposed to consider the "whole man" because he writes nice thank you notes.
Fuck. That.
10 comments:
verbally fellated by every living U.S. President last week.
They call that "professional courtesy."
And how!
OK, if Bush is a "sack of shit" for pursuing these policies while believing they were right, what does that make his successor, who has pursued and even expanded them (drone attacks on U.S. citizens) while campaigning against them?
Try to focus, Bubba. I am very specifically talking about torture, here.
I'm 100% focused here, Brian. Bush's role here, if these acts indeed occurred--and keep in mind we have one uncorroborated opinion here--is in putting the systems in place, not in specifically telling people to do despicable things.
Obama has, despite campaigning against these systems, maintained the systems, basically ensuring that whatever wrongdoing was enabled by the systems will continue and even worsen.
So if Bush is a "sack of shit" for what he did, Obama is a "lying sack of shit" for what he has done do civil liberties.
Sauce for the goose, Brian.
The particular logical fallacy Bubcakes is participating in this round is known as the "Availability Cascade" which is defined as...
"a self-reinforcing process in which a collective belief gains more and more plausibility through its increasing repetition in public discourse (or "repeat something long enough and it will become true")."
It is and has been the chief strategy of reactionaries against Obama from day one.
It was the Republicans who originally blocked the move against GITMO, but it's Obama's fault. Say it long enough and repeat it enough times and everybody forgets what actually happened.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/8/congress-deals-death-blow-gitmo-closure/?page=all
It's one of the things that secured Obama's reelection. The idea that people are stupid and have short memories insulted a ton of fence-sitters, but the reactionary right remains as obtuse as ever.
And if Bush had ordered drone strikes on American citizens Booboo would have loved it.
Bubba, I hope you enjoy this, because it will be the last time I engage your inane and predictable partisan hackery. I am tired of your bullshit assertions of equivalence.
Lest you think you are being singled out for merely disagreeing with your host, you are invited to browse the archives (I’ve got almost 7 years’ worth here) and note how frequently and cheerfully I have entertained dissent. I’ve even been known to let other people post things with which I personally disagree on the front page.
Lest you further believe that I am calling the kettle black here and only carrying water for Mr. Obama, I also invite you to type his name into the search box on the upper left-hand corner of the page and see for yourself how readily critical I am of him when and where I see that criticism is merited. I have been all over Obama on failing to hold torturers accountable, and on foreign policy. Where were you when Bush was president?
You are factually challenged on several points. A non-exhaustive list:
"...we have one uncorroborated opinion here..."
No, we have a firsthand account here--one of many--that is consistent with numerous findings of fact. Here's one. Here's (news of) another (a task force chaired by a Bush Administration official, no less). I could go on, but I also grow tired of doing your homework for you.
"Obama has, despite campaigning against these systems, maintained the systems..."
For all his aforementioned faults and shortcomings, Mr. Obama rescinded Bush's policy on interrogations. Its implementation is a matter of some dispute, (that, by the way, is a single, uncorroborated account). To the extent Mr. Obama has failed to reign in the massive apparatus set in motion by his predecessor, I am happy to call that a failure of leadership on his part. But to assert that this is somehow equivalent to--or in your ridiculous formulation, worse than--explicitly authorizing the systematic torture of U.S. detainees as a matter of policy requires a willful refusal to approach this issue with anything resembling moral clarity.
"sack of shit"
You've twice attributed this phrasing to me, when what I called Mr. Bush was "a walking piece of excrement". But hey, thanks for elevating the discussion.
Partisan hackery? I beg your pardon, sir. I am presenting facts, and we can start with the fact that I'm no neoconservative, dubious about the Iraq war and the enhanced interrogation we're discussing.
(sorry, RW)
And you need do no homework for me, because as I read Hentoff, he's saying about the same thing I am. Obama's "improvements" in this regard are almost solely for the cameras. Give up waterboarding, but also choose to simply kill suspects with a drone strike instead. As Hentoff notes in other columns, not exactly an improvement.
And thus you know the reason for the verbal fellatio. It's all for the cameras, Brian.
What it amounts to is...
Brian: Bush, torture, GITMO
BB: lessee oh civil liberties... er.. uh.. Obama... and.. drone strikes and how many fingers am I holding up and... oh... Obama too... and also drones.
Brian: Bush. Torture.
BB: If then also then... Obama... DRONES HOLY SHIT! Oh and... broken promises... also shiey object... lok]ok fast! and... lessee... also drones.
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